Japan, the Second Time Around

I left Korea again with a heavy heart and headed to Japan. This is my second time to go there and the first time I went there was one of the best experiences I had in my life. This time would prove to be different. I came to Japan previously to attend a month long intensive Japanese course in Kyoto at Ritsumeikan University. I was there with some other Americans and Canadians and I befriended a few of them along with a bunch of Japanese. It was my first trip to East Asia and really was an important time for me to develop my skill in Japanese. It was really a fascinating trip for me because I had studied Japanese culture and history for a couple years before I arrived so I used to trip to verify and disprove my preconceived notions. That trip was fun and enjoyable in every way. I remember when I came home my dad told me that the second time I go it won't be as amazing as the first. I sort of blew him off at the time but now I see he had a point.

Japan has lost its mystique for me. The streets that I thought were impeccably clean seemed dirty. The overwhelming politeness of people in 7/11 annoyed me. The expansive temples and quaint shrines felt commonplace. Also, everything seemed (and actually was) so much more expensive for me. I think coming from the extremely affordable Philippines along with the fact that a $US is now worth only 80 Yen now made me feel like I was bleeding money constantly.

I spent the first two nights in Kyoto where I met with some old friends both from my previous visit and a girl I volunteered with in the Philippines. It was good to see them and catch up a bit but they didn't have the spare time to have much more than a meal.

I had one day to kill in Kyoto and as nice and attractive as Kyoto is I lived there for a month and I have been to pretty much been to every famous place in that city. I spent my time over on the small street where I used to live. I thought I could revisit my old feelings if I returned to the place where my experiences were had but I felt almost nothing as I walked through my memories. I realized that my special attachment to Kyoto was subjective to that time and the people I was with. Times have changed and I am not the same guy I was back then. I spent the day reading a book about the history of Manila in a coffee shop full of old Japanese guys smoking cigarettes.

The next day I headed up to Nagoya via Hikone which is in Shiga Prefecture. I met my old roommate from the Philippines in Hikone. He was also a volunteer at an NGO that I was loosely connected to. Hikone is a very nice, quiet, and livable town. Most Japanese probably have never heard of it but I enjoyed my time there and it was good to see my friend again. He's a good guy and even if we come from almost completely different walks of life we have a solid friendship.

I continued up to Nagoya where I met another friend in the train station. Nagoya was not as big as I thought it was going to be. We went out one night and they toured me around the next day. Honestly, Nagoya is not extremely interesting place to visit but it is well known for its food. They make some really good wings and they are obsessed with miso and put it on everything.

We visited Nagoya castle which is pretty much the only tourist attraction in the city. It is quite big but I have to say that if you are interested in seeing castles in Japan than the best one is in Himeji. I'm pretty sure it is the biggest in Japan and more importantly it has never been demolished since it was constructed four hundred years ago.

We toured Nagoya castle and its grounds which had a surprising number of weirdos wearing various costumes. The castle was destroyed in World War 2 and has been rebuilt with all the modern amenities and there was a corner of the castle devoted to its destruction. There was a picture hanging that I couldn't discern at first.

 I looked at it carefully and I finally figured out that it was a depiction of the castle burning down after it had been bombed. I was moved by the picture and I tried to picture myself as a local citizen at that time. The Japanese people prior to and during the Second World War were constantly fed propaganda that they were the strongest Asian civilization and they had supreme power. Children were indoctrinated in this belief and still the Japanese have a strong sense of national pride even if it is quite different today than it was at the time. The castle must have been a symbol of the power and prestige of the Japanese military and the Japanese cultural dominance. How would a Japanese person feel watching that symbol be destroyed and incinerated and how did they cope with the reality that followed? Japan was literally reborn in the ashes of that war. With most of the major cities destroyed by Allied bombing and of course the two atomic bombs there wasn't much left of the power and empire that the Japanese people had so much in pride in. The prestige and perceived cultural dominance was unceremoniously shattered and would never recover. Some people would say that the Japanese deserved this for the crimes their military committed all across Asia. I believe the people in the Japanese government and military should be held responsible for the atrocities but I am more interested in the human level; the view of the average Japanese. I can't imagine how it would feel if everything I knew and respected was desecrated before my eyes. Anyway, Nagoya girls are hot. I saw more attractive women in Nagoya per capita then any other Japanese city I was in. I really believe that Japan has some of the most attractive women in the world. They have a fashion sense which sometimes I think is too much but I can appreciate it. Japanese are not only physically attractive but they have a manner which I really enjoy. I'm generalizing now but when you flirt with Japanese girl they have a perfect balance of shyness and flirtatiousness which makes them irresistible. Tokyo also had some very beautiful women but I have to say Nagoya has a higher concentration considering the much smaller population.

Following the castle and a few other sites I headed up to Tokyo on a night bus. The bus was actually surprisingly comfortable and I slept well. I arrived in Tokyo in the early morning and a friend of mine met me at a train station in Saitama which is about 45 minutes outside Tokyo. He had offered to have me stay at his house with his family. Actually Saitama is a place I have wanted to go for a long time. It is sister cities with Pittsburgh for whatever reason. I walked around the city a bit and I'm not sure if I really got that Pittsburgh feel...

I spent the day touring around Tokyo by myself. I checked out Asakusa which is a very touristy place famous for some temples and special foods.

I went to Akihabara which is the Mecca of anime and Japanese comic book nerds. It also has a wide array of stores with cheap electronics and tons of Maid Cafés were the waitresses all dress up in French maid outfits and play silly games with you and talk in weirdly high pitched voices. I actually went to one of these places in Osaka the last time I was in Japan but I wasn't about to go to one alone. That's just kind of weird. I was disappointed with the girls on the street since none of them let me take a picture so I snapped some secretly.

After this I went to what I think was the fashion capital of Tokyo, Shibuya. People there wore the strangest clothes. Some of the women wore very sexy outfits but some of them just looked kind of weird. Guys, both Japanese and foreigners also sported some high douche bag fashion. I could tell I was in an affluent area because there were so many tool bags. I trekked a long time through these streets before I came to solemn and quiet Meiji Shrine. It seemed to be the Central Park of Tokyo. It was very quiet and once you go inside you could almost forget that you are actually in the heart of Tokyo. The shrine itself is hardly ornamented at all and compared to other shrines I've been to was not all that interesting. What I did find interesting was just how undecorated the place was. Meiji was the emperor that brought Japan into the era of modernization and under his reign Edo was renamed Tokyo. I made an analysis of the place but I think only people interested in Japanese history would like to read about that.

After walking around for awhile I found a quiet bench and took a nap. I needed to relax since I'd been walking the whole day on limited sleep. Upon returning back to the house of friend his family was already preparing a sort of welcome party for me. We had some delicious meats and other Japanese food. My friend had to finish two reports that night so he was indisposed for most of the evening but I spent most of the time discussing with his father. Our discussion was a little bit hindered by the fact he apparently had tracheotomy and could not speak at all so I was speaking Japanese and he was writing out English sentences on small white board to communicate. We drank and discussed various things. We drank a lot. It was good. We had a fruitful discussion.

The next day I met a good friend of mine who volunteered with me at the same NGO in the Philippines. She is a very sweet girl and I've always had a soft spot for her which allowed me to tolerate the fact she was an hour and a half late. I know she lived in the Philippines for a couple months where punctuality is not so important but even Filipinos aren't usually that late. We visited Waseda University where she is studying and we also went to a museum about the history of Tokyo. My time with her was cut a bit short since I had promised my friend's family that we would got to an onsen together that evening.

 I do really enjoy the Japanese style onsen which traditionally should be a natural hot spring but they are able now to manufacture a similar effect.

The next day I headed to Osaka by bus since my flight was the day after that from the airport nearby. In the usual stupidity of air travel I headed back to Osaka to take a flight back to Tokyo from which I would leave to go to Vancouver. I was surprised at the airport by a Japanese girl that had come to my house in Pittsburgh a couple times. She was fresh from building latrines in Zambia. She is a very interesting lady and I am really had not expected to see her. It was good to discuss with her even if it was only for an hour or so.

Overall I enjoyed my stay in Japan but mainly for the people I met there. I was reluctant to visit Tokyo the last time I was in Japan but I have developed a liking for the massive metropolis except for how god damn expensive it is. Now I head to Vancouver to visit some friends from college and it is the last step of my journey back home to Pittsburgh.